Surreal Performance Features ‘Four Librarians Trapped in a Fantastical Library’

By Jason Boog 

Inspired by our recent post about rooms built out of books, one reader pointed us toward the SoGoNo Company–a theater company that mixes theater, dance, and books in innovative compositions.

The “Art of Memory” performance in the video embedded follows the surreal adventures of four librarians. The piece evolved between 2007 and 2009, exploring this storyline: “Four librarians trapped in a fantastical library search for an exit and create elaborate physical games that explore memory and illusion.”

We missed the show, but Gothamist described the experience: “The centerpiece of [the] delightful set is a closed shack on stilts; to the right there’s a grove of trees with book pages for bark, a moon hovers to the left, and dozens of books dangle from the ceiling with Edison light bulbs glowing in the bindings. The lights dim, and three pale ghosts–women in bloomers–dance/creep into the room and open up the walls of the shack to reveal an elaborately dusty library, presided over by a stick-thin woman dressed in black and dangling a book on a leash.”